


A myth to behold

by FangedAngel



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-03 05:08:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11525193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FangedAngel/pseuds/FangedAngel
Summary: The Outsider doesn't know why he's here. He can feel the Void calling to him, but he is intrigued by the way in which Corvo's pain resonates with him when it shouldn't affect him in any way. He's seen many empires fall and many lives shattered in the name of many causes. He's seen unimaginable destruction and horror, and too much death, but he's barely ever found himself feeling involved in any of it. The closest he got to feeling anything more than mild interest was when he marked the rat boy, and even then he'd only felt mild disappointment in the end, a hint of remorse at the loss of so many other futures. He supposes that his mistake of getting involved in saving Corvo when he was a boy is behind all this, but he feels like he couldn't have avoided that. In all the glimpses of Corvo's futures he's been able to see, he's always intrinsically entwined with the Outsider in a way the god cannot begin to explain.Or: the Outsider's 'fascination' with Corvo starts earlier than Corvo might have thought, and allows Delilah to get away with a lot. Featuring: lots of long sentences, very little dialogue, and lots of Corvo thinking. Also lots of canon divergence in terms of plot and characters.





	A myth to behold

**Author's Note:**

> I signed up for this big bang because I hadn't written anything non-essay-related in five years and thought I'd throw myself into a challenge, and also because I love Dishonored more than is good for me. This plot started from a tiny fragment and was supposed to be much better and different and amazing, but that didn't happen in the end. What did happen was that it was finished, so I suppose it succeeded at that. I'd like to thank [carvedwhalebones](http://carvedwhalebones-events.tumblr.com) for hosting this and being there, and the entire Discord chat for keeping me going (even though I wasn't as present there as I'd have liked). This is really one of the most welcoming fandoms ever, and it's been an amazing ride. A massive wave of gratefulness goes out to my two partners in crime, the amazing artists that chose to stick with this crazy little plot, [neriad13](http://neriad13.tumblr.com) and [bookerdewitless](http://bookerdewittless.tumblr.com) for taking the glimpses I offered and creating visual masterpieces. Here are their wonderful contributions: [1](http://bookerdewittless.tumblr.com/post/163075674487/my-contribution-to-the-dishonored-big-bang-my), [2](http://neriad13.tumblr.com/post/160958350300/paloma-attano) [3](http://neriad13.tumblr.com/post/160958319665/beatrici-attano) [4](http://neriad13.tumblr.com/post/160958225605/paloma-and-beatrici) [5](http://neriad13.tumblr.com/post/160958172615/corvo-and-the-outsider). They are the true stars of this.
> 
> Also: some mentions of The Corroded Knife and The Wyrmwood Deceit. Warnings for a child getting struck and some canon-typical implied violence.
> 
> I can also be found on [tumblr](http://ethicalmadness.tumblr.com).
> 
> (title taken from Saint Saviour's _'This ain't no hymn'_ )

 

 

 

> _1852 - early month of Earth (Dunwall)_

 Corvo hasn't had this dream in years but he slips into it with an intense familiarity before he can rationalise that he's no longer awake. He's in Karnaca, sun and salt in the air and on his skin, watching the boats making their way back to the docks, and he is not the child he used to be but Beatrici is standing right next to him like she used to, never growing older in the fragments that piece her image together in Corvo's memory. In his dream she is once more at his side, the short dark hair that their mother hated falling over her forehead in the breeze, and she's laughing as usual, hungry for adventure, carefree and non-conforming, making fun of Corvo like she's never stopped being his older sister. Even in his dreams Corvo knows he should have grown to expect it, but when she vanishes the shock of it is as jarring as the first time, the suddenness of loss as shattering as ever, and Corvo reaches for her but the very next second he's in the sea and drowning, his arms weakened by desperation, screaming without sound as something approaches from the darkness beneath him, and then that darkness becomes a blinding rush of blue, and a familiar yet ungraspable voice whispers ' _this is where it started_ ' and someone else screams his name and Corvo wakes up gasping, choking on the need to breathe, his heart beating at a mad pace. For a moment that borders on madness he doesn't remember where he is, the room too dark to identify, the concepts of time and space eluding him as his mind takes turns in making him feel like he's back in Karnaca as a child, or silently bleeding on the ground in his Coldridge cell, or back in the ocean, drowning in an infinite loop.

Reason restores itself a few moments later but Corvo's lungs are burning, his eyes watering, and he's clutching his sheets with his hands so tightly that his fingers have gone numb. It's only after he takes a few long breaths that he realises his mark is glowing, even though he's not summoned any of the Void's powers. The wrapping he's fashioned for his hand is doing nothing to hide what's happening and Corvo unravels it to get a closer look at how his skin is alight with a blue bright enough to burn, bright enough to seem eerily similar to the blue in Corvo's dream. It's like the mark has a will of its own, unwilling to fade back to its usual state, a light source in the darkness of the Royal Protector's bedchamber, and Corvo -still half-trapped in the aftermath of his dream- lets his other hand linger over the mark, his fingers tracing its lines almost reverently, trying to glean its intent, or rather the intent of the one whose will it serves, the one who's been silent and invisible for so many years that Corvo's given up on ever seeing him again.

An unnecessarily loud conversation between two guards patrolling the hallway outside his room makes Corvo jump, and he presses the back of his marked hand to his forehead, whispering a curse in the dark. By the time he moves, the mark has faded to its normal black, and he doesn't know whether the suffocating feeling of loss is simply a lingering trace of his dream or something even more complex, that he cannot allow himself to think of on such little sleep. It is only as he dozes off that he realises why the voice in his dream had been so familiar, but by then it is too late to articulate that thought in any way, and by the time dawn wakes him all that remains is the feeling of loss.

 

 

 

 

> _Prelude: 1810 - Month of Songs (Karnaca)_

 When the storm breaks, Karnaca is caught disastrously unprepared. Storm season has come and gone, and Karnaca is never hit by anything other than light rain at such a late stage in the year, but the city stays as dark as night for days while the storm batters it, winds tearing the streets apart while rain floods them, keeping its citizens from their work and their bread, those with a roof over their heads shuttered underneath it and reciting the scriptures over and over again to make sure it doesn't shatter. They say it's due to the increase of sin-spreading worshippers of the Outsider, or due to the recently finished wind corridor channeling the currents falling from Shindaerey Peak, or due to many other reasons without any basis in reality, but the storm does not care for their mutterings and it keeps wreaking havoc without a hint of waning.

On the fifth day of the storm, Corvo vanishes before daybreak, and by noon his sister Beatrici sits by the trembling window and watches their mother frantically pacing in her mourning black, the words of the scriptures falling from her lips continuously, almost hysterical in her anticipation of a new wave of grief. It's been less than a month since the sudden demise of her husband and her children's father, and Paloma Attano is still in a state of shock, still unable to understand her new role as a widow, still unable to cope with her own feelings, let alone help her children to cope with their own, and now Corvo's missing in the middle of a storm the likes of which Karnaca has not seen in living memory. Beatrici stares at her hands curled into fists as the wind howls, sneaking into their small apartment in deafening drafts. When her mother walks into Corvo's room to rearrange it for the hundredth time, Beatrici sneaks out quietly, the storm raging in her heart as deafening as the one she walks into.

*

It's a miracle that she makes it to the bay. The canals are flooded to the point of being unusable as shortcuts, and the head wind is so strong it almost makes her fall too many times to count, and walking against it is a war in itself that makes her progress last three times as much as it usually would. She doesn't even know if her brother is there, but it's the only place she can think of. It's not the first time Corvo would have sought solace there, in the rhythm of the waves and the pattern of the boats coming into harbour, and he's been quiet and sleepless since their father's death, affected in ways he could find no way to express. Beatrici doesn't know if it's panic or sheer determination that gives her the strength to keep going through the deserted and devastated streets, but she hears the rage of the sea and she knows she's close despite the rain blinding her, her cheeks stinging with the force of the wind.

There is no sight of sand now that the waves have engulfed the beach, making their way into the streets closest to the bay and crashing into front line buildings, the remnants of wooden boats everywhere. Beatrici stops on an incline, a vantage point over all the destruction surrounding her, the enormity of it making her heart race. There's no sign of her twelve-year old brother and Beatrici's legs are shaking as she walks as close as she can to the water, until she can taste nothing but the salt of it, and still she can see nothing, no sign of humanity in the chaos of nature, until she looks up and sees a figure clad in black on a balcony. Beatrici screams his name, but the wind and the waves drown her out, and by the time she can figure out how to reach him through back alleys and vents it's too late. The tallest wave she's seen so far slams into the building Corvo's in, making it shake in its fury, and Beatrici watches, voiceless, as her brother falls.

For moments that seem to stretch on forever she can't even think, can't even breathe in the grips of the terror that has taken hold of her. There is no chance of survival in those waves, not even for a gifted swimmer like Corvo. He's too young to bear the force of the waves for long, and the currents are too strong to escape, with nowhere close enough to offer refuge, and no one close enough to help.

Beatrici realises she's found her voice again only when she hears herself screaming her brother's name, screaming for help, her legs giving out and her knees hitting the ground with bruising force. She's too far from him, and all she can do is watch, but then she hears a new sound amidst her sobs and the wind and the sea. She hears singing and at first she thinks she's gone mad, but then she sees it emerge from the sea that now seems aglow with a bright blue light that seems to come from the deep. The whale is mythically sized, the stuff of drunken sailors' dreams, its eyes so black even Beatrici can see them from afar, and its enormous body drenched in blood which is pouring into the sea in a constant stream, turning the blue into a deep purple that seems even more unnatural. The whale keeps singing, seemingly unfazed by the storm raging around it and by the devastating strength of the waves, and Beatrici loses her ability to breathe again when she sees that on its back is her brother, bloodied and seemingly lifeless, and as the singing grows louder than the storm Beatrici stands and runs towards the water because the whale is making its way towards her in the water that is now ablaze with light as if someone had dropped thousands of whale oil tanks in it. Beatrici runs into the waves without pausing to consider the consequences, the whale close enough to touch now and staying still, as if waiting for her to pick Corvo up and take him back to safety. Beatrici is awe-struck as she gathers Corvo into her arms, the whale's blood on her hands and the strange blue glow all around her, and it takes her much too long to realise that the storm is starting to ease off, the sea starting to retreat at the same time as the whale does.

She can't tell if Corvo's breathing, can't feel his heartbeat, and her awe is replaced by panic again, until she realises that someone else is standing right next to her, his hand on her shoulder, and then the world disintegrates into a blue that burns, and she holds on to Corvo, trying to shield his body with hers.

When she opens her eyes again, the whale's singing is still echoing in her ears, but the wind and rain have stopped and she's standing in the stairwell of her apartment building, her brother in her arms, both of them dripping water on the steps. She's frozen with the shock of it all, but she can feel someone next to them still, holding on to her arm, and when she looks at him she sees eyes as black as the whale's, as black as Corvo's hair, and she cries out and he disappears and her mother comes running, screaming in fright at the sight of her children, which draws their neighbours out. They pry Corvo out of Beatrici's arms and in the chaos that ensues over them taking care of Corvo and running for the doctor, Beatrici lets herself crumble, sitting on the floor in the corner of Corvo's room. The singing still hasn't stopped, but she's the only one who seems able to hear it, and when she reaches into her pocket she finds one of the charms that she's seen so many times in the comprehensive list of items that the Abbey forbids. She puts it back in her pocket before anyone else notices, the whale bone warming her skin, and she laughs amid tears when Corvo wakes up, when Corvo says her name and reaches for her and cries as she holds on to him, and he keeps stumbling over his words, his voice barely there as he speaks of whales and blue seas and dark eyes until Beatrici tells him to hush, wary of those able to overhear and jump to conclusions that for once would not be entirely incorrect.

Later, when everyone in the house is sleeping, she hides the bonecharm in the secret hiding place Corvo and her have devised behind the loose brick in the wall of his room, where it will be safe from their mother until Beatrici can figure out what to do about such a blatant symbol of heresy singing the blasphemous music of the Void in the house and under the nose of a fervently religious woman.

Weeks later, when Corvo has fully recovered and has started running around Karnaca again, chasing bloodfly nests with only a shadow of the darkness that used to haunt him still hiding in his eyes, Beatrici walks home in the middle of the day with the plan to remove the bonecharm to a safe space she's found in the basement of a dilapidated building nearby. Her mother's started complaining of nightmares filled with heretic symbols which make her wake up in the middle of the night and write letters full of worry to the High Overseer in Dunwall, and Beatrici wants nothing more than to run, but Corvo still needs her, and he's too young to leave.

When she reaches the apartment, she is startled by a sound coming from Corvo's room. Her mother's meant to be attending mass, and Corvo's meant to be at school, and suddenly dread tugs at her heart because she can hear her mother crying while stuttering over the prayer to ward off witchcraft and she knows what she is walking into.

As expected, Paloma is sitting at Corvo's desk, pale with terror, the crackling bonecharm in front of her, and when her daughter walks into her range of sight she stares at her like she doesn't even recognise her.

'What is this? What is it doing in our house?' she keeps saying, over and over, and Beatrici finds herself once again wondering at her mother's precarious state of mind.

'How can your brother be a heretic?' Paloma says, shaking with the horror of it all, wringing her hands, and Beatrici focuses on breathing in slowly. She knows her mother would never understand the circumstances of her beloved son's salvation from the storm. It won't make a difference to explain that no one was marked, that nothing was sacrificed, because everyone knows that the Outsider does not simply grant favours. Corvo will forever be tainted by the association, and her mother will hand him to the Overseers because she loves no one as much as she believes in the Abbey, and Beatrici knows her mother would think that she'd be doing it for Corvo's own good, but she knows the reality of it, she knows that Corvo would be executed for heresy like many before him, purged with fire. Beatrici can see it all play out, as clear as if it's already happened, and she finds her voice as she grabs the bonecharm off the desk, ignoring her mother's astonished and sudden silence.

'It's not Corvo's, mother. It's mine. I found it.'

Her voice doesn't tremble but she suddenly feels very young under her mother's gaze, unable to read her thoughts until Paloma stands, shakily, and keeps staring until she breaks the silence by hitting her daughter across the face with more force than Beatrici'd ever thought her capable of mustering. Beatrici almost laughs at the suddenness of it, almost says that faith works in mysterious ways, and then her mother hits her again before leaving the room and Beatrici suddenly feels iron-willed as well as light-headed. She grabs paper and ink and leaves a note for her brother in their hiding place, confident that her mother will not go looking for anything else for the time being, and then she makes her way into her own room, grabbing the leather suitcase she'd inherited from her father and filling it with things at random, clothes and items that seem necessary. She knows she won't return to this room so she looks around a final time and leaves only a few of her most treasured books behind before leaving the apartment, a note of finality in the way she avoids looking at her mother before walking out the door. Corvo will come home and find her gone, and it pains her in a way she never knew, but it gives her comfort that he will be safe and protected until he is of age.

She finds the dilapidated building and makes sure no one is watching as she slips inside, the bonecharm in her pocket. There is an altar in the basement, clad in purple and candles that never seem to burn out, and as she sets the charm on it she knows that she is not alone. She doesn't look at him, clutching the handle of her suitcase tighter as the bonecharm seems to sing louder, greeting him almost joyfully.

'I don't know why you did what you did,' she says, no trace of hesitation in her voice,'but I will ask of you that you keep an eye on him.'

It sounds mad, even to her own ears, but it is nevertheless a request she must make.

The being next to her doesn't address her request immediately when he replies. 'Corvo Attano will know great happiness,' he says, pausing for effect before continuing with 'and great sorrow, the type that would break any lesser man. His future is his alone, but I can see that all the choices that lie ahead of him are incredibly fascinating in a way that makes him stand out from all of you. I will be watching him, but I cannot intervene any more than I already have.'

Beatrici's heart hurts with each of the Outsider's words, as much because of what they mean as because of the way they are spoken, utterly disinterestedly. Despite his tone, however, Beatrici can tell that he is not used to intervening at all, and she smiles despite the worries she has over her brother's future. It seems that he'll have a god on his side, at any rate.

When she turns around, the Outsider is gone and the bonecharm has fallen quiet. She walks out of the building, into the fading sun and towards the bay. Dunwall awaits, and from there infinity.

 

 

 

 

> _1837 - Month of Rain (Dunwall)_

 The stench of agony hangs heavily in the air. There's a cacophony of screams echoing around the walls of Coldridge prison, but silence reigns in Corvo's cell, where a still madness has taken hold. Corvo himself is bleeding into the floor where he's fallen, the viscous redness of the blood knotting itself into his hair. He's shivering in a way that makes it seem like his body's breaking even further than it already has after five months of barely-interrupted torture. From the empty cell next to his, the Outsider is listening to Corvo's erratic breathing, the cloying smell of blood hanging around him like a shroud. The Corvo on the floor is entirely unfamiliar to the Outsider, far from his grasp, his mind and body shattered in a way that would have seemed impossible before the death of the empress. The Outsider knows Jessamine's loss is the only reason why Corvo's mind has succumbed to the torture, her death breaking him more than any pain the royal executioner could dream of, destroying him to a profound extent that makes the Outsider feel like his throat is getting cut again, over and over, whenever he tries to pry into Corvo's state of mind.

The Outsider doesn't know why he's here. He can feel the Void calling to him, missing him, but he is intrigued by the way in which Corvo's pain resonates with him when it shouldn't affect him in any way. He's seen many empires fall and many lives shattered in the name of many causes. He's seen unimaginable destruction and horror, and too much death, but he's barely ever found himself feeling involved in any of it. The closest he got to feeling anything more than mild interest was when he marked the rat boy, and even then he'd only felt mild disappointment in the end, a hint of remorse at the loss of so many other futures. He supposes that his mistake of getting involved in saving Corvo when he was a boy is behind all this, but he feels like he couldn't have avoided that. In all the glimpses of Corvo's futures he's been able to see, he's always intrinsically entwined with the Outsider in a way the god cannot begin to explain. Corvo's death would have altered too many paths too drastically, and so the Outsider's decision seemed like the lesser evil. Even though he doesn't play favourites, the Outsider is drawn to this place in a way he can't dwell on and that goes beyond the necessity of saving what's left of Corvo's sanity. The empress' daughter must be saved if Dunwall is to survive past the rat plague, and Corvo is the only one who can save her. It's not getting involved if it's the only way forward, and that's the reason behind his visits to Coldridge.

Corvo whispers her name, and it sounds like it's getting choked out of him because he's still shaking. The Outsider feels something he doesn't remember the name of, something that makes his hands ache with the need to touch, and before he can think any better of it he's in Corvo's cell, kneeling next to him, brushing his matted hair away from his face. Corvo doesn't see him, removed from reality, his eyes unfocused, his lips trying to form words but his voice is gone, claimed by the screams he forces himself to stifle during every torture session. He's scratched words and symbols into the unyielding walls with his nails and his blood which attest to his descent into madness, his inability to keep hold of the truth of his own innocence. It takes long moments until Corvo looks at him, though the expression on his face makes it seem like he doesn't believe the Outsider is real, which is made even more apparent when Corvo reaches out, letting his fingers rest on the Outsider's cheek, like he's checking to see if he's there, but then his eyes glaze over again and he is lost once more. The Void tugs at the Outsider but he lets his hands linger on Corvo's shoulders until the shaking subsides, until he falls into restless sleep. Before he disappears, he realises Corvo's blood is drying on his hands and on his face, a red made even more vivid by the paleness of his skin. He finds it both poetic and damning.

He returns the following night and sits in the cell next to Corvo's while Corvo struggles to breathe through the pain. He speaks in a voice that is not his, hoarse and foreign, and tells Corvo stories of Emily and of how she needs him. There is no more time to waste and there is only one way to reach Corvo in this state. The rest of the plan is already in motion, and when the Outsider takes his leave, Corvo is sitting up, propped against his excuse for a bed. He's ready.

 

 

 

 

> _ 1852 - Month of Harvest (Karnaca) _

 The suffocating abundance of dust is unfamiliar, burning Corvo's eyes and tearing at his lips even beneath the mask. Karnaca is both foreign and known, both home and loss. It is a place he still recognises having been part of, and at the same time a place he is entirely exiled from, even as he makes his way across its streets and its rooftops, even as he overhears snatches of conversation accented with the soft lilt of home. Fragments of an old Serkonan lullaby are carried through the dust storm to where Corvo is hiding, high above Overseer territory, and the melody of it sounds like a memory, like his mother's voice lulling him to sleep, keeping him safe, but safety itself is an illusion. He's got adrenaline and magic and anger running through his veins as he plans his route to the Vice Overseer's office. He made his choice before he even got the chance to think about it, his instinctive hatred towards Overseers taking over and influencing him and he still doesn't know if he had that same hatred before the Outsider marked him or if it's just something that he inherited with his powers, heresy clouding his mind, owning him. He remembers his mother's voice again, reciting the strictures, over and over, finding comfort in the words more than she'd ever found joy in anything else. He remembers how Beatrici hated it, how much she resented their mother for it. He wonders what they'd both think of him now, Paloma's son and Beatrici's brother, a creature of the Outsider, the Void singing inside him, owning him in a way he can't help but need to belong to. He wonders what they'd think about how similar he is to Delilah. The Outsider must know this, must be very entertained by it, but Corvo still wonders, sometimes, if he'd still be as repulsed by the Overseer masks as he is now if Jessamine had lived, if she were there still, with her advisors and the Abbey whispering in her ear and attempting to influence her decisions in a way Corvo could never help but be furious with, in a way he could never accept, in a way he could never keep quiet about, attracting their remarks and their gossip and their disdain. Corvo thinks of the pain of the music boxes, now rare in number and almost obsolete, thinks of how he found himself forced to use them as a weapon against Zhukov and how it had felt like betraying himself, the magic within him turning against itself. He remembers dreaming of the Outsider afterwards, dreaming of the darkness of his eyes and his voice and that way he has of looking at Corvo, like he can see right through him even when Corvo himself can't comprehend his own feelings.

When he dreams of the Void he dreams of the shattering cold of it, the almost comforting way in which it freezes him to his very soul. He's never known such cold, but it's like his skin aches for it instead of being repelled by it. When he wakes up he carries the feeling of it with him for hours, and it makes him feel stronger, like the magic running through him is appeased, like he belongs to the Void more than he could ever belong to a physical realm anymore. It must explain why he's found it so easy to side with Paolo in this faction war over his district, even though he's never met the man, even though Slackjaw couldn't cure him of his distrust for gangs. He has met Vice Overseer Byrne too many times, however, and he's always felt the man's eyes on him at every possible opportunity, suspicion written everywhere on him. Corvo knows that Byrne must have reported back the many rumours of Corvo's heresy to High Overseer Khulan, but nothing has come of it, somehow, even though the people of Dunwall's streets still comment on watching the Lord Protector appear and disappear on rooftops during the rat plague, carrying the song of whale bones on him, carrying the cold of the Void and the darkness of the Outsider's eyes. The wrap does nothing to make the mark more subtle, instead attracting attention to it in a way that brings Corvo an odd sense of pleasure that he should not feel.

He's spent too many nights unfastening the wrapping and drawing along the mark with his fingertips, watching it faintly glow blue in reply, feeling the power it contains coursing through him, missing the Void and its deity more than he could have ever admitted. Now he feels removed from that as well, because he's allowed himself to become distracted, allowed himself to become used to the illusion of safety that he'd weaved around Emily, not even entertaining the possibility of someone stronger and more skilful than him coming after her, thinking it would all become predictable after Emily's coronation, that he could easily foresee any threats targeting her. He'd trained her in all but what would have been most important to her against Delilah, and he will never be able to forgive himself for failing her yet again, for letting her down and being complicit in her suffering again. He remembers the years of nightmares she had after she was put on the throne, the way she sometimes still wakes up screaming in a way he's aware of even from the other side of the Tower. He wonders, for the thousandth time, if he should retire once he brings her back, if he should let others do his duty better than he can, if it is time to admit that he cannot save her from his own failings.

He's too caught up in his own lies, which he should never had hid from her. He can tell, sometimes, from the way she looks at his marked hand, that she knows more than she lets on, that she caught more than he'd wanted her to back when she was ten, but he couldn't stop himself from protecting her from his secrets, especially as he kept remembering the way Jessamine had always deferred to the Abbey, following in her father's footsteps after he'd insisted so many times that the Kaldwins would be nothing without the backing of the Abbey, that Dunwall itself would fall into ruin without it. Once again Corvo lets himself think of Khulan, back in Dunwall and alone against Delilah. Corvo wonders what he'll find when he returns, if he'll ever be able to speak to Khulan again as candidly as he had before. Khulan had become one of their fiercest allies, against all odds, and again Corvo had been aware of how the High Overseer's eyes had lingered on his hand, of how he'd deliberately ignored reports from the Overseers and the oracular sisters, how he kept protecting Corvo though Corvo had never asked him to, had never expected him to. He thinks of Jameson as well, and Wyman, and hopes they would not be foolish enough to return from Morley and attempt to stage another coup. They would have no idea of how to deal with what they would walk into, and again Corvo feels that he has been the cause of all this, that this is only his fault, that he's made such a disaster of everything that he'd sworn to protect, from Emily to her entire empire, and his closest allies, his closest friends, the tightly-knit circle he'd created around Emily to protect her, all ruined, all lost, due to his lies and his inability to see things clearly.

He'd been so focused on teaching Emily how to protect herself from assassins and corrupt nobles that he'd forgotten about the Delilahs of their world, the ones who shared the powers Corvo had but who'd succumbed to a certain kind of corruption in the magic that even the Outsider was repelled by, that went against the powers themselves and the essence of the Void. He should have known better, and the Outsider is right to scorn him for it, right to laugh at him for it. Corvo doesn't know why the deity is on his side still, doesn't know why he keeps choosing him against other marked. Daud first, then Delilah, and Corvo wonders, sometimes, at the Outsider's insistence on not playing favourites, but then he remembers that he's failed, again, and that the Outsider has not bothered with him in fifteen years, not until Corvo managed to single-handedly put the entire empire in danger again in a way that even the Outsider would not be able to ignore. The mark burns on his hand as he thinks of it, like it's replying to him again, like it knows exactly what he needs, and it brings order to his scattered thoughts, grounding him to the rooftop.

He finds himself eager for a fight, anticipating it, wishing for it. He won't kill Byrne, but he will relish ripping his mask off and laughing in his face, his powers setting his veins aflame, finally uncontained after too many years hidden away, longing for freedom. In this moment, he is free of Delilah's shadow that has been threatening to choke him even here, the nightmarish quality of the loss of Dunwall and Emily's entrapment haunting him aboard the Dreadful Wale, plaguing his few hours of restless sleep until all he wants to do is scream. In contrast, when he's on his missions Corvo feels more alive than he has in years, his blood singing like runes, the thrill of the chase giving him purpose, and the glimpses he's had of the Outsider at his shrines -even with the deity laughing at him, sullen with him- are as addictive as they were fifteen years ago, putting a name to the hollow longing he's felt throughout the years in a way he can't ignore anymore. The Outsider won't call him out on it, his hurt at Corvo's lengthy absence from the Void only visible in the way he avoids Corvo's eyes at times in a way he never has before. Corvo returns the favour by not calling him out on that either, keeping up the tradition of silence in the face of the Outsider's scorn and theatrics, even though the Outsider must know how having the mark removed by Delilah felt too much like dying, how it devastated Corvo's body and mind with the overwhelming suffocation of loss. He'd expected a smug and self-satisfied god in their reencounter, but the Outsider's seemed distracted ever since, more distant than usual, and Corvo can't articulate how he knows that something is wrong, only that he does. Something is destabilising the Void, making it darker and fragmented and oppressive in a way that feels wrong and that leaves the same bitter aftertaste as Delilah's corrupted magic.

Corvo doesn't ask, but he wonders, in those broken moments of reality before he drifts off into nightmares, he wonders at the feeling of wrongness, he wonders at how it makes him want to reach out and touch his god and let himself be drawn into the tendrils of darkness that form him. He wonders how the magic in him would sing then, how joyous it would be, wrapped in its master. He wonders if it would finally make him feel at peace, and as this thought blooms in his mind again it feels like it's gone beyond heresy, so close to the Overseers. It tastes like elation, like euphoria, and he listens to the conversations of the brothers and the keening of their wolfhounds with a grin under his mask. Byrne is nearby, a presence looming on the edge of Corvo's awareness, thinking himself safely ensconced in his office and spreading his rumours and strife and Corvo burns with hatred for him, the memory of music boxes and torture and betrayal wrapped in religious fervour still too vivid. He doesn't remember this depth of feeling from before Jessamine's death, back when he was only too happy to ignore the sins of the Abbey while wrapped up in his own happiness, but he doesn't think it's all to do with the mark on his hand. It goes beyond that, calling out something more primitive in him, something that made him resent his mother's devotion to the strictures and her hours spent kneeling in the shadow of the Abbey, where no one could reach her. He thinks the root of that resentment must be what attracted the Outsider's attention in the first place, the sensing of that origin of heresy, but the memory of Paloma doesn't allow him to dwell on that realisation. She'd been lost to her family since before her husband, and Beatrici must have known years before Corvo did. Her loss still stings, wrapped up in Corvo's loss of Beatrici, and his father, and Karnaca, and Jessamine, and Emily twice, the overwhelming losses he doesn't allow himself to dwell on, but now, with his childhood home so close it feels like he's stepped back in time, like he can simply walk up the street to their modest apartment and find it all as it was, with Beatrici and their parents waiting for him, and it feels like yet another rupture, that nothing's the same, that everything's chaos and that Corvo is once again clawing his way through a desperate and almost certainly doomed fight to save the daughter he's failed to protect yet again.

He's not aware of blinking until he's halfway in the air between the scaffolding surrounding the Overseer outpost that he'd been perched on and the pillar in the middle of the street. One of the hounds sniffs the air, intrigued at the shift, but no one else is looking up, and Corvo blinks again to to the far corner that lets him squeeze into the alley behind the building housing the erstwhile Attano residence. From there it's only a matter of climbing a few air vents and finding an open window that transports him to a ruined version of the past.

The sunlight that manages to filter its way through the grime on the windows is immediately choked out by dust, like everything else in the apartment, like Corvo's memories, too tattered to reimagine the space as it was. The dust is settling heavily in his lungs and dancing in the air and clinging to his feet as he makes his way to what used to be his room, where more light is filtering in through broken glass, so golden it still seems unreal after Dunwall's usual greyness. He can both hear and feel the crackling of the bonecharm, the Heart thudding ever faster in a way that makes Corvo's own rhythm change pace, and he presses his hand to the wall that houses his and Beatrici's old hiding place, feeling the vibration of the magic calling out to him in his fingertips. It reminds him of something that feels like a dream but might be a memory, of being a boy with his cheek pressed to the wall, being comforted by the sound he wouldn't have known how to identify back then.

As usual, he expects the bonecharm to burn in his hand, and as usual it doesn't. He doesn't know how something like this ended up in his childhood home, and can only wonder at what his mother would have made of it. She's a ghost haunting the corners of the apartment still, and if Corvo closes his eyes he can hear the shuffle of her long stiff dress brushing against the floor, whispering against the walls. He can almost hear Beatrici's laughter again, so reckless and free, and his heart aches in a way that makes him forget himself.

He presses his lips to the charm before pressing it to his forehead, the mask momentarily discarded, and for a moment it sings louder than a rune and makes his mark burn bright with a shock of feeling that renders Corvo motionless. Even here, in his childhood room, with the words of the scriptures etched in the very foundation of the apartment, with his Blade Verbena trophy hidden in the wall, the Outsider's presence is almost tangible, like he's just out of reach, hiding around the corner, waiting for Corvo to find him, to see him, beckoning him once again. Corvo whispers his name and then laughs at himself, wondering if he's succumbing to a madness he remembers from his prison cell, a madness that's been haunting him and hiding in the dark corners of his mind ever since. He lets the fingers of his other and rest against the mark again, only for another stolen moment, and then he puts his mask back on and walks away, his home too foreign and hollow, choking under the weight of loss that Corvo leaves behind himself, driven by determination once more. Vice Overseer Byrne is waiting to be relieved of his duties.

 

 

 

 

> _ Interlude: 1852, the Void _

 The Void is crumbling, and the Outsider can feel it. Ruined buildings are shattering, exploding into fragments and falling into nothingness, blue turning into black, dead whales and lampposts disintegrating, stone collapsing, wind howling, everything that had been his fading, and her laughter, loud and clear and mad, as she gives chase. He knows there's no effective hiding place, but she can't make the entire Void break at the same time, so he keeps a step ahead of her in the areas that are still clinging to the imperfect state they'd always been in, at least for now. Despite being the epicentre of Delilah's renewed power, the altar that caught his blood is still intact, a frozen scene, a broken dream, a memory fragment. The altar is warm to the touch, like it's still holding his lost humanity within it. He almost expects there to be blood on his fingers when he looks at them, but there's nothing there but the memory of it, and the Outsider feels like his throat is still open, like he's still struggling to breathe, desperately clinging to air, to life, to the mortality that had always punished him.

This is worse than dying as a human. The Void is being destroyed, and the noise and the pain of that destruction are equally devastating, the wind tearing at him, threatening him, his realm turning against him, screaming at him, desperate for salvation. He's made a mistake too many, but before he can dwell on that Delilah appears right there, right in front of him, sitting on his altar like she belongs, tendrils of smoke around her hands, welcoming her usurpation, and the Outsider remembers the taste of blood on his tongue, the taste of blind, all-consuming fury.

She laughs at him, right in his face, and he promises himself that he'll tear her apart and make her live through all of it, that he'll feed the Void with her blood and her screams and drown in the joy of it. For now, however, he must endure.

'Do you realise what your mistake was, my dear master?' she asks, laughter in her words, dripping like poison, everything in her taunting him, mocking him.

He looks around himself, at the Void falling so quickly into ruin, and he knows before she says anything, knows exactly how she turned it against him. It wasn't finding the altar, though that would have been worrying enough, considering she should never had had access to it. It's what the Outsider himself has never allowed himself an acknowledgment of, something he'd been able to set aside, as much as anything like it could be set aside. He's got a name on his lips, ready to fall into existence, ready to remind him of all that he's been trying desperately not to miss for the past fifteen years, all that's not his. He knows what her next move is, knows what drives her, and he can't stop her, but he can do what he's always done in the past. He can guide, and he can watch. He won't tell Corvo what's wrong when he beckons the Royal Protector to him once more. His fate would not be considered something he can be impartial to, and Corvo will have enough reasons of his own to defeat Delilah.

The Outsider closes his eyes, an entirely too human gesture, and he seeks Corvo out, as he is wont to do when it's nighttime in Dunwall and Corvo falls into his few hours of restless sleep. Corvo is dreaming, dreaming of the Void, dreaming of him. The Outsider whispers his name in his dream, and Corvo blinks awake to watch the mark on his hand burning, the wrapping long fallen to a side.

When he looks at Delilah again, she's ecstatic with the frenzy of triumph, and the Outsider almost expects to see blood on her teeth when she laughs again.

'I expected so much more of you, but in the end I suppose you are only human, despite being a deity. You don't deserve to be here,' she says, walking closer to him, and he struggles not to wrap his hand around her throat and wring the life out of her. 'I thought it was Daud, at first, did you know? But then I watched your dear Royal Protector, and as I watched I saw that he had another shadow other than myself and on occasion my dear niece. You have such a taste for the mediocre that it seems almost offensive to those of us who are infinitely more skilled than Corvo Attano, but I suppose I must thank him. He has provided me with the perfect weapon. I used to be happy with planning Emily Kaldwin's dethroning, but why be content with ruling Gristol when I can be an empress and a goddess at the same time? You have failed your kingdom, Outsider. You must make way for your betters.'

The Outsider smiles at her, even as she rests her hand on his elbow. He's blinded mortals for less than that, but for now he will let her have her small victories as he plans for the war. The joy dies from her eyes at his expression, but by the time she launches into another speech, he's gone.

  


 

 

 

> _ 1852 - Month of Nets (Dunwall) _

 The city is a tomb of silence and despair and Corvo feels numb at its state of utter desolation. He's only been gone a little over a month, and the vibrant Dunwall he'd left behind has been obliterated. The stench of corrupt magic is making it hard to breathe, and the shroud of smog enveloping everything is reminding him of the newfound darkness he'd experienced in the Void. For a moment he thinks that Dunwall is a mirror of the Void's state, but that thought makes no sense, and he is distracted from it by hearing a witch singing in a crumbling building. The Heart is leading him somewhere next to the Tower, across rooftops and air vents, and his own pulse is racing. He's hoping for a shrine, needing the familiar comfort of its purple light. Dunwall suddenly seems even more foreign than Karnaca had felt in the absence of all that he'd loved there, and it feels like jumping into nothingness with no powers to save him.

When he finds the small apartment with its fake wall panel, he breathes a sigh of relief before he asks himself how he never noticed a shrine to the Outsider so close to the Tower. He should have felt it in his very bones, where he feels the vibration of the runes and the bonecharms. Perhaps he'd been too wilfully blind, or perhaps the shrine had only appeared in his month of absence, someone's last hope in a fortified room full of weapons and resources to withstand a siege. Corvo finds himself hoping the person who'd built the shrine had escaped, had gone far from Dunwall's darkness, but he knows that would be much too optimistic a prognosis. Hope has abandoned Dunwall and its citizens once more, in a way that seems even more final than back in the days of the rat plague, back when it seemed like everything would end in death and desolation. Even then, there were still people in the streets.  
  
The shrine is calling to him, and he takes his mask off, letting his hand rest on top of the runes there for a moment, his fervour making his fingers tremble. When he picks one of the runes up, the world dissolves into the darkness of the Void, and the Outsider is there in front of him, saying his usual things, but Corvo can't focus on any of his words, overcome with the need to touch this god of his even though he knows he's immaterial, even though he knows it would be like touching smoke. The darkness is even more overwhelming than during his last visit, pressing heavily against his temples, making it hard to breathe, and Corvo is struck once more by a feeling of wrongness that unsettles him so much he doesn't even realise when the Outsider stops talking. There is a howling wind rushing through the Void, dispersing the tendrils of smoke around the Outsider, tugging ferociously at Corvo's clothes, and for a moment they just stand there observing each other, the sound of something of considerable size crumbling in the distance, out of sight, out of reach.

'Tell me what's wrong,' Corvo says, and this is not how things are between them, but whatever's happening in the Void is getting worse instead of better, and he's done with the silence.

The Outsider's lips twist into a scowl and he gives one definitive and dismissive shake of the head. Corvo doesn't relent. He won't relent until the Outsider throws him out of the Void.

'I can feel something is wrong. Tell me what I can do,' Corvo says, trying to sound appeasing rather than demanding, adding a 'please' as an afterthought.

The Outsider laughs mirthlessly in reply, cruelty in the corners of his mouth, but underneath his mocking tone Corvo can hear something frantic and desperate, something unhinged, something that makes Corvo's heart race with panic in a way it hasn't since Emily was turned into stone in front of him.

'Do you really think there's something you could do that I haven't already done?' the Outsider says, words thrown like knives, and they would subdue Corvo if not for that hint of frailty still tingeing them.

He holds his ground as well as the Outsider's dark gaze, and he lets the wind howl around them. The Outsider still hasn't thrown him out, incomprehensibly, and Corvo can't read whatever his eyes are hiding. He's never been able to.

The silence breaks when the Outsider moves closer towards him, and Corvo holds his ground still, poised and ready for an attack, but the Outsider merely touches his elbow with a hand that is very tangible.

'My dear Corvo,' he says, still touching Corvo, making the mark burn in response like it's aching for him, 'you're all alone, aren't you?'

Corvo says nothing in reply, merely shrugging a shoulder. Being alone has never bothered him when he's in battle, and this has been nothing other than an extended fight, with allies appearing and disappearing on the fringe of events but never really interfering with the actual action itself, Meagan (whom he still can't call Billie) and Anton guiding and advising and resourcing, Aramis encouraging, Hypatia struggling to cling to reason and to her ruptured sense of self. Corvo needs his battles to be solitary, or else he becomes too involved in saving those who would go into them alongside him. It's always been his role, facing danger alone, protecting those behind battle lines.

The Outsider's the only one who's constantly survived being part of the past fifteen years of Corvo's battles and challenges, but only because he is in Corvo's skin, in his veins, completely inescapable, completely aloof.

The Outsider doesn't touch the mark itself, but Corvo does, unfastening the wrapping and pressing his fingertips to it, his skin illuminated blue. The Outsider's eyes are so dark Corvo can see his reflection in them, and they won't leave his face for a moment, his hand still on Corvo's elbow, digging into the material of his coat.

'I'm never alone,' Corvo whispers, and it shouldn't be possible for the Outsider to hear him in the fury of the wind, but the Void is entirely impossible, so of course the Outsider does, clutching at Corvo's arm so hard it goes numb.

'Corvo,' the Outsider says, and then stops, turning to listen to further sounds of destruction, coming ever nearer. Corvo wishes, childishly, to hold on to him to ensure he won't disintegrate. When the Outsider turns back to look at him, he is wearing a cold, devastating fury as a mask, and Corvo would look away if he'd feel for a second that it were aimed at him.

'Tell me,' Corvo says, and he sounds altogether too pleading, but it seems to have a calming effect on the Outsider, the tension in him easing. He watches as the Outsider touches the scar on his own throat like he's trying to convince himself it's not reopened.

'Don't underestimate her, Corvo, or you will lose. Defeat her and everything will be over. Don't let her claim you,' the Outsider says, speaking to Corvo in a way that's more straightforward than he's ever experienced before, desperation still underlying his words, and Corvo's heart aches, and aches, and aches.

'Be careful,' the Outsider says, almost caring in a way he shouldn't be able to be. 'If this is the last time, I hope you find peace, my dearest.'

The Outsider moves away as his words disappear in the wind, but not before the back of his hand brushes against Corvo's mark like a promise, and by the time Corvo can recover from the surge of feeling at that fleeting touch he's back in Dunwall, on his knees and breathless, holding on to the edges of the shrine with aching fingers. He can still hear the wind howling, and when he climbs out of the apartment he realises that the wind in Dunwall has strengthened enough to mimic the one in the Void, clouds hanging low and dark and oppressive and Corvo desperately wishes for the clean scent of rain. Delilah's magic is an abomination, and the smell and feeling of it make him feel ill, his hands shaking and his mark still burning as he climbs back to the safety of the rooftops. He puts his mask back on and tries to force his breathing into a normal pattern, trying to banish the memory of the Outsider in his crumbling kingdom. It must be Delilah's doing, though Corvo can't imagine how she can affect the Void itself. He doesn't doubt the strength of her madness and the full extent of her corruption, but the power she wields still comes as a surprise. In the aftermath of his visit to the Void, Corvo's need to destroy her feels doubled, tripled, his anger curling his fists and coursing through him, making him feel deadly and alive. He won't underestimate her, but she's underestimated him, and it's the last mistake she'll make.

He turns his face towards the sea when the wind brings him the sound of a whale's song, hoping to catch a last glimpse of the Dreadful Wale that would allow him to imagine the woman he'd known as Meagan standing where he left her, weighed down by her secrets but perhaps also absolved by his forgiveness. Instead, he sees another boat silently making its way towards the docks as the whale song grows louder like it's trying to hold his attention, to beckon him towards it. He wonders if the boat is on a rescue mission or if it's just scavenging, attempting to make profit from desolation. He doesn't have time to worry about it, but his instinct drives him over the rooftops, closer to the water. The boat is docked by the time he gets near enough to allow the spyglass in his mask to zoom in with perfect clarity. He can't make out any discernible features of the boat's two occupants until they step into full view on the deck, and then he thinks he must be dreaming or bewitched, shock flowing through him like ice. For a moment he's trapped in the memory of Delilah's trick with Milo, years ago, back when Corvo had still been foolishly desperate enough for news of Beatrici that he'd been willing to throw all caution to the wind at the first mention of her name, but not even Delilah had been able at the time to conjure his sister or even an approximation of her and not even someone as powerful as her would've been able to make her appear, in Daud's company no less, in the midst of a dying Dunwall.

Corvo is stunned, unable to stop staring, ripping his mask off to assure himself there's no magic at play. Daud looks much the same, though thinner and greyer, his skin tanned in a way that makes him look more Serkonan than ever before. He's still poised and elegant and lethal, and he still brings up the usual well of mixed emotions in Corvo, from rage to sorrow.

Beatrici _has_ changed, but not enough to be unrecognisable to Corvo's disbelieving eyes. Her erstwhile black hair is now mostly silver and she's even more tan than Daud is. She's laughing in that way that is unmistakably hers, in the way that no one could ever reproduce and it feels like a homecoming in a way returning to Karnaca never could have. Corvo can't see the finer details of her face with the mask off, but he knows she'll have laughter lines everywhere, from the corner of her eyes to the corner of her mouth, and he feels unadulteratedly pleased at the proof of her happiness even through the shock of her presence. She looks content and free and still as reckless as Corvo remembers, and he blinks over to the docks before he can stop himself.

Daud notices him first, of course, sensing the magic shifting the atmosphere, and his grin is predatory. Corvo is less encumbered by grief than when they last met, but he still wants to launch himself at Daud blade first if only to watch him turn hesitant and unsure and ruffled. Corvo ignores him instead and walks towards Beatrici until he's close enough to reach out and touch her arm to make sure she's there. She's smiling, looking at him like she's also cataloguing every single change in him, everything written on his face that that she's missed in the past forty years. He wonders if she can see the memory of Jessamine etched into his skin, if she can see the Outsider, his mark hidden from view but still present, still echoing with the touch of its god. If the way she looks down at his wrapped hand is any indication, she's very much aware of what is concealed beneath it.

'Hello, little brother,' she says, and her voice sounds the same, catching Corvo unprepared, memories of childhood flooding his awareness, from the layout of their home, to walks with their parents, to jumping into the sea with all the joy of youth, to hunting down bloodfly nests, to the storm that devastated Karnaca shortly after their father's death. He vividly remembers being caught in the rage of the waves so long ago, he remembers drowning, he remembers breathing, he remembers dark, dark eyes and whalesong.

He shakes that particular memory off and focuses instead on the present and on his sister's face, Daud still a jarring presence at their side. Corvo has so many questions to ask her, but there's no time. The heavy silence over the city still echoes occasionally with screams and witches' laughter and the baying of gravehounds, and Emily needs him, as does the Outsider, and every minute Delilah spends in the Tower, playing at being an empress from his daughter's rightful throne is a minute too long.

'What are you doing here, Bea?' he asks, casting a sideways glance at Daud. 'What is _he_ doing here?'

Daud laughs and Corvo's fists curl up with intent as he moves further away from Daud in disdain.

' _He_ is here to help the Outsider's ungrateful little favourite,' Daud replies, biting and mocking.

Corvo's protest is cut off by Beatrici's impatient eye roll, which is such a familiar sight from Corvo's childhood that it almost hurts.

'Don't start, Daud. We are indeed here to help. The Outsider's been sending us some of his cryptic dreams, and we assumed something must be seriously wrong.'

Her voice is warm and soothing, but Corvo still flinches at the words, still feels a pang of loss, the memory of Jessamine's blood on his hands assaulting him again, the smell of Coldridge almost tangible.

'Things have gone seriously wrong before. It never brought you back,' he says, and it sounds like a very youthful accusation even to him, which makes Daud raise an eyebrow at him until Corvo looks away again.

Beatrici's smile has turned sad.

'I didn't know back then, Corvo. I only found out when Daud stumbled his way into my home in Pandyssia, years later, and by then it was too late to do anything.'

'You did almost kill me anyway,' Daud says, and Corvo can see -with a sense of true horror- that even he has fallen prey to her charm.

Beatrici laughs again, and Corvo knows he needs to go, that he must return to his mission, but he feels calm for the first time since the coup, so he steals a few more moments instead.

'You were gloating about ruining my brother's life, of course I tried to kill you,' she says, and Corvo wonders if in another life he could have shared this camaraderie with Daud as well. Too many variables would have had to change for that to be reality, but the thought tugs at him anyway, the sense of loss growing again.

'You are both here because the Outsider felt like interfering this time around,' Corvo says, remembering the look on the god's face when he'd called Corvo lonely. Once more, he's intervening when he said he wouldn't, when it's against his nature.

Daud and Beatrici both nod their affirmations, and Corvo looks at them, trying to understand how they feature in whatever plan the Outsider is weaving. Corvo's mission must be as solitary as ever before, but perhaps too much is at stake for the Outsider to entrust the fate of the Void to Corvo alone.

'I can't put you in danger,' Corvo says, and he means both of them, despite the resurgence of grief Daud's presence has brought along with it.

Daud scoffs at the words, squaring the line of his shoulders, the Knife of Dunwall feeling slighted.

'Your black-eyed bastard might not have kept you informed, but I have fought and won against Delilah before.'

The statement shouldn't feel as surprising as it does; the Outsider always did seem to enjoy sending the two of them on merry chases independently of each other, and the god had hinted at Corvo's obstinate foolishness in not speaking to Daud about Delilah, but this confirmation is another reminder of lost chances.

'I can also hold my own, Corvo,' Beatrici says, eyes narrowed and determined. 'We were sent here for a reason and we won't hide away until the danger passes. Tell us what we're facing.'

*

What they're facing is a street full of Overseer corpses leading to the Tower, gravehounds lurking in the shadow of death, poised for attack. The sight only serves to confirm Khulan's death in Corvo's mind. He would have fought to the end against witches and clockwork soldiers, protecting his men and the city and the memory of Corvo and Emily. Another loss to add to the ongoing tally, but Corvo will allow himself to grieve only if this ends. He finds himself wondering what will happen when it does, if they somehow survive. There are no Overseers left in Dunwall, the High Overseer is lost, and the Vice Overseer is as good as. The Abbey has fallen, and there is no precedent in how to manage that situation, and if Emily lives it will be her duty to manage the tatters her city is left in.

For now, Corvo and his unlikely allies sneak up the Wrenhaven through the Coldridge canal, and Corvo finds himself actively repressing a shudder at the sight of the prison looming over the cliffside like it always has, its shadow constantly haunting the Tower, its presence inescapable, reminding Corvo of everything he's lost, everything he'd rather forget. It feels even more disrupting than usual now, with everything fallen apart once again, even more than before.

Daud and Beatrici remain silent at his side, alert and poised for battle, observing the destruction without commenting on it. Corvo watches their movements, letting himself fall behind them when they reach the cliff leading to the Tower. He thinks of the corpses littering the streets, of the sound the clockwork soldiers make as they rip through flesh, of gravehound fangs tearing skin, and he loads the sleep darts into his bow without a second thought. They're as fast-acting as ever, making their targets collapse gracelessly before they realise what's happening, and Corvo makes sure they are hidden from view and as comfortable as possible before he breaches the Tower. No matter what the Outsider might believe, Corvo will not put any more people in danger than he has to. His mission must be a solitary one, for better or worse.

*  
In the chapel, everything has been corrupted, and Corvo can barely breathe. Rage is still coursing through him after finding what has been done to Khulan's body, and all he wants to do is to disintegrate the twisted magic that's taken over his home. Delilah's notes show him what needs to be done, even though crafting the corrupt rune makes his own magic feel like it's turning against him for a moment that seems to last an eternity. When he's done, instinct leads him back to Delilah's journal, hateful words upon hateful words filling page after page. He wants to understand how she's controlling the Void, wants to use it against her, but when he finds what he's looking for his own heart seems to stutter and the spirit he's trapped in the heart that used to be Jessamine's laughs. The mark glows, reacting to the words and to Corvo's own reaction and he can almost feel the Outsider, the darkness of his eyes both beckoning and lethal.

The words are triumphant, ecstatic, detailing Delilah's discovery of the altar in the Void, and then her discovery of the Outsider's weakness, the way she gleefully used all her knowledge to yield the Void against the Outsider like a weapon. Corvo wonders again if he's being tricked, reading his own name over and over again in Delilah's frenzied script as she writes about the Outsider's attachment to Corvo, about the history between them, the way the god's betrayed his nature over and over again for Corvo. It sounds impossible, and unhinged, and unreasonable, but the mark burns with the truth of it, and a deep sense of understanding settles over him. He'd always found the Outsider distant and indifferent, but now he sees how carefully the illusion of that distance was woven in order to distract from the truth of it, and his rage at being used as an instrument in Delilah's plans could tear the world apart.

The mark glows fiercer as Corvo makes his way to the throne room, grounding him to reality as he fades into Delilah's painting, as he tricks her into unconsciousness, and it guides him back home, where he places her on the throne and seals her fate. Corvo kisses the contours of it when she's gone, letting his lips linger, his whole world electric blue, and then he turns to Emily as over Dunwall rain starts to pour, chasing the corruption away.

 

 

 

 

> _ 1852, Month of High Cold (Tyvia) _

 The mark wakes Corvo up before dawn, its glow fierce enough to contour his surroundings. It's the first sign he's had since Emily's restoration, and he takes it for the invitation it is. He closes his eyes and sees a landscape laden with snow behind his eyelids, a manor in its midst, and he knows exactly where to go.

The coach ride north is long and restless and Corvo is not ready for the Tyvian cold that assaults him even before he crosses the border.

The mark hasn't stopped glowing, and Corvo touches it, drawing over it with his fingertips, thinking of the vague note he left for Emily to find, of the orders he left for Jameson to increase the security detail around her while he's away. He feels an intense sense of trepidation at the thought of leaving her alone in Dunwall and racing away, but he knows she's in safe hands. He also knows the Outsider wouldn't endanger her, not now, not so soon. The god knows what it would do to Corvo, and for reasons he still can't explain, that seems to be enough.

The Outsider had vanished, his shrines quiet and dark and the whales absent, and Corvo had worried all throughout the chaos following Delilah's defeat, survivors trickling back onto Dunwall's streets and helping clear the devastation with their empress in the midst of it all. Even Beatrici and Daud had stayed for weeks, lingering on the edges of emergency council meetings until one morning they left, as Corvo knew they would, with Billie in tow. He'd watched them leave from the rooftops, Aramis and Hypatia trailing behind them, bound for their own ship leading to Karnaca. Corvo would have felt happy then, a clean breeze clearing Dunwall's smog and tugging at his hair, the cacophony of life all around him in the streets below, but part of him longed for the howling wind of the Void, for the impenetrable darkness of the Outsider's eyes. His skin ached for the slightest touch of the god who'd claimed it with his mark, and Corvo didn't question it. The days passed quickly enough as he attended to the needs of the city as it tried to piece itself together again, Emily locked down in endless meetings that left her hollow-eyed and gaunt-cheeked until Wyman intervened. The empire was still in turmoil, the oracular sisters baying for blood, for justice, and for the restoration of the Abbey, the people torn between the comfort of tradition and the healing of revolution.

As the snow takes over his senses, Corvo feels far removed from the mayhem he's left behind, impatient with the need for reencounter in a way he hasn't allowed himself to be until now, the fear of loss too prevalent. He'd known the Outsider had survived, but not what fixing the Void would entail, and certainly not what the Outsider felt in the wake of events, having allowed himself to become vulnerable because of someone so inconsequential and ephemeral.

Corvo finds the manor easily enough, and he steps out of the coach into a dance of snow, his lungs constricting at the shock of the cold air he breathes in. He can barely see as he makes his way to the entrance, snowflakes clinging to his eyelashes, but the door parts for him immediately, granting him access to warmth. There's a fire burning happily in the fireplace in the sitting room, and Corvo knows it's not for the Outsider's benefit. Snow melts in his hair as he removes his coat, walking closer to the fire and warming his numb hands.

When he turns again, the Outsider is behind him, hands clasped behind his back, looking entirely incongruous within the mundane setting, his eyes as dark as ever but looking completely human otherwise without the tendrils of smoke usually accompanying him.

'My dear Corvo,' the Outsider says, and Corvo forgets how to articulate words, joy rising in him like a tidal wave. He doesn't know what to do nor what to say, and the Outsider seems as amused at his failure as always. He's not weak and vulnerable anymore, restored to full power and obnoxiously aware of it, reading Corvo like an open book and giving nothing in return.

Corvo stands his ground as the Outsider walks closer to him, and he still moves like he's in the Void, uncanny and inhuman, but when he touches his mark on Corvo's hand his skin feels warm. The mark burns with the joy of reunion too, and both the fire and Corvo are reflected in the Outsider's eyes.

'You should have told me,' Corvo says in the barely-there space between them. 'I remember it now. The storm, and Coldridge, and you, always there. You should've told me. Why didn't you?'

The Outsider's only slightly taller than Corvo, but he seems to be looking down on him from a great height all the same, the darkness in his eyes overwhelming. He doesn't look angry at being questioned, his hand holding on to Corvo's, fingers wrapped around his wrist, thumb tracing the edges of the mark.

'You had a different path before you, Corvo. A multitude of paths, to be exact, but they all led to Dunwall and the empress and loss and from there on you defied expectations and made your own future. You chose your own way. I can't say I didn't hope it would bring you here, but I didn't truly expect it.'

The Outsider's voice is low, an intimate tone that makes Corvo shiver. Jessamine's name lies unspoken between them like a weapon, and Corvo knows the Outsider expects him to cling to the memory of her, to enshroud himself in his grief again, but Corvo's made a promise to let her rest, to let himself gain peace. He allows himself to move, his hand cupping the Outsider's face, palm splayed open, thumb stroking the sharpness of his cheekbone, and the Outsider's grip around his wrist tightens, the mark flaring, alive.

'I'm here,' Corvo says, and the Outsider wraps his arm around his waist and pulls him closer, swallowing the echo of his words.

Outside, the wind howls with the sound of triumph.

 


End file.
